The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology

By Jeffrey C. Alexander

Book Overview

Modern men and women go about their lives without really knowing why. Why do we work for such a long time every day? Why are we so obsessed with technology? Why do we continuously construct scandals? Why do we finish one war only to fight another?

If we had to explain these things, we would say "it just makes sense" or "it's necessary" or "it's what good (or bad) people do". But when we say that the war against terrorism is necessary and rational we use a rhetoric of good and evil, of friends and enemies, of honor, conscience, loyalty, of civilization and primeval chaos. These rhetorics rest on ideas and feelings, not just rational necessity, and they are of immense power and import.

These rhetorics are cultural structures. They are deeply constraining but also enabling at the same time. The problem is that we don't understand them. That is the task of this book.

In this pathbreaking work, Jeffrey Alexander argues for a cultural sociology that will bring these unconscious cultural structures into the broad light of day. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, he shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions.

Only when these deep patterns of meaning are revealed, Alexander argues, can we understand the stubborn staying power of violence and degradation, but also the steady persistence of hope. By understanding the darker structures that restrict our imagination, we can seek to transform them. By recognizing the culture structures that sustain hope, we can allow our idealistic imaginations to gain more traction in the world.

A work that will transform the way that sociologists think about culture and the social world, this book confirms Jeffrey Alexander's reputation as one of the major social theorists of our day.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195160843
• ISBN13: 9780195160840
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 9.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Praise for THE MEANINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE

From the Publisher: "This is a powerful claim on behalf of reuniting what has been separated since the beginning of the sociological venture: shapes of acts and their meanings, descriptions of human deeds and their comprehension, the this-worldly and the transcendental, religion and reason, values and facts, the poetry of culture and the prose of the mundane. This claim has been made with the hope of liberating the knowledge of things human from its service to a power that too often struggles to liberate itself form the ethical bonds of humanity. A commanding claim that makes for fascinating reading." --Zygmunt Bauman, author, "Modernity and the Holocaust"

Meanings of Social Life

"Whether Alexander is considering high theory, the Holocaust, or computerization, the reader is treated to a mind at work that breathes originality and brilliance. A commanding...compelling performance!" --Steven Seidman, author of "Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life""Jeffrey Alexander views culture as causal, not merely a reflection of social structure, but as embodied and embedded in institutions and personalities, rather than as coming down from on high. The final chapter about the ways in which we social scientists have thought about the world in which we live is alone worth the price of the book. A powerful argument." --Robert Bellah, coauthor of "Habits of the Heart""Boldly, often brashly, challenging almost every cultural analyst in sight, Jeffrey Alexander here states and illustrates his strong program for analysis of culture as a coherent, autonomous social realm. The Holocaust, Watergate, computers, and contemporary American society at large all provide starting points for Alexander's distinctive reflections on social experience." --Viviana A. Zelizer, author of "The Social Meaning of Money"